Again humility was very audible in the quiet tone
of her voice. She understood that she had been
instructed. She felt she should not have needed
it. She faced her ignorance frankly.
“What one knows, that one must do,” she
repeated, fixing the words in her mind, “if
by doing it one can save a life. No, I shall not
forget that.”
She rose from the seat.
“I must go in.”
“Yes,” cried Chayne, starting up.
“You have stayed up too long as it is.
You will be tired to-morrow.”
“Not till to-morrow evening,” she said,
with a laugh. She looked upward to the starlit
sky. “It will be fine, I hope. Oh,
it must be fine. To-morrow is my one day.
I do so want it to be perfect,” she exclaimed.
“I don’t think you need fear.”
She held out her hand to him.
“This is good-by, I suppose,” she said,
and she did not hide the regret the words brought
to her.
Chayne took her hand and kept it for a second or two.
He ought to start an hour and a half before her.
That he knew very well. But he answered:
“No. We go the same road for a little while.
When do you start?”
“At half past one.”
“I too. It will be daybreak before we say
good-by. I wonder whether you will sleep at all
to-night. I never do the first night.”
He spoke lightly, and she answered him in the same
key.
“I shall hardly know whether I sleep or wake,
with the noise of that stream rising through my window.
For so far back as I can remember I always dream of
running water.”
The words laid hold upon Chayne’s imagination
and fixed her in his memories. He knew nothing
of her really, except just this one curious fact.
She dreamed of running water. Somehow it was fitting
that she should. There was a kind of resemblance;
running water was, in a way, an image of her.
She seemed in her nature to be as clear and fresh;
yet she was as elusive; and when she laughed, her
laugh had a music as light and free.
She went into the chalet. Through the window
Chayne saw her strike a match and hold it to the candle.
She stood for a moment looking out at him gravely,
with the light shining upward upon her young face.
Then a smile hesitated upon her lips and slowly took
possession of her cheeks and eyes. She turned
and went into her room.
THE AIGUILLE D’ARGENTIERE
Chayne smoked another pipe alone and then walking
to the end of the little terrace looked down on to
the glistening field of ice below. Along that
side of the chalet no light was burning. Was she
listening? Was she asleep? The pity which
had been kindled within him grew as he thought upon
her. To-morrow she would be going back to a life
she clearly hated. On the whole he came to the
conclusion that the world might have been better organized.
He lit his candle and went to bed, and it seemed that
not five minutes had passed before one of his guides
knocked upon his door. When he came into the
living-room Sylvia Thesiger was already breakfasting.
